The Politics of Memoir and the Northern Ireland Conflict

Stephen Hopkins

The first book to analyse in-depth the politics of memoir-writing in the context of the Northern Ireland Troubles.

Will interest both academics, scholars and policy-makers who are wrestling with the complex issues of the legacy of conflict.

Covers a broad range of the key protagonists in the conflict, including British Secretaries of State, unionist and nationalist politicians, republican and loyalist paramilitaries, as well as journalists and victims/survivors.

The Politics of Memoir and the Northern Ireland Conflict

Stephen Hopkins

Description

This book examines memoir-writing by many of the key political actors in the Northern Irish Troubles (19691998), and argues that memoir has been a neglected dimension of the study of the legacies of the violent conflict. It investigates these sources in the context of ongoing disputes over how to interpret Northern Irelands recent past. A careful reading of these memoirs can provide insights into the lived experience and retrospective judgments of some of the main protagonists of the conflict. The period of relative peace rests upon an uneasy calm in Northern Ireland. Many people continue to inhabit contested ideological territories, and in their strategies for shaping the narrative telling of the conflict, key individuals within the Protestant Unionist and Catholic Irish Nationalist communities can appear locked into exclusive and self-justifying discourses. In such circumstances, while some memoirists have been genuinely self-critical, many others have utilised a post-conflict language of societal

The Politics of Memoir and the Northern Ireland Conflict

Stephen Hopkins

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements1. The Study of Political Memoir and the Legacy of the Conflict in Northern IrelandIntroduction The Politics of Memoir: Establishing the Parameters of Study The Construction and Narration of Exemplary Lives The History of an Individual's Soul: Truth and Memory in Life-Writing 2. Provisional Republican Memoir-WritingIntroductionBecoming a Provo: Narratives of Belonging Different Worlds of the Troubles: Locality and Internal Republican Politics3. Departing the Republican Movement: Memoir-Writing and the Politics of DissentIntroduction Explaining the Break: Dissent or Disavowal?4. Loyalist Paramilitarism and the Politics of Memoir-WritingIntroduction: A New Phenomenon?A Line in the Sand? Authorial Motivation and Loyalist Paramilitary MemoirA Confusion of Voices: Author and Subject in Loyalist Life-WritingAn Enclosed World? Localism and Loyalist Memoir-Writing Loyalists, Life-Writing and Motivation: Exploitation orReconciliation? Conclusion 5. Memoir-Writing and Moderation? Ulster Unionists Face the Troubles Introduction Unionists and Reform: O'Neill and Narratives of Frustration Reflections on Unionist Political Division: O'Neill and Faulkner6 .Northern Nationalists and Memoir-Writing: The Social Democratic and Labour Party and the Troubles Rejecting Republicanism?A Paradigm Shift? Civil Rights and the Attitude to Unionism The SDLP and the Troubles 7. A Case-Study of Memoir-Writing and the Elusive Search for a Political Settlement: The 1974 Power-Sharing Executive andSunningdaleIntroductionHope and Hesitation'A Government of All the Talents'The Ulster Workers' Council Strike: 'A Nightmarish, Surreal Experience' 8. British Ministers and the Politics of Northern Ireland: Reading the Political Memoirs of Secretaries of StateIntroductionThe Experience of Northern Ireland: Marginal or Central?Welcome to Belfast, Minister! Appointing the Secretary of StateThe 'Loneliness of the Northern Ireland Secretary': Reflecting on Policy-Making as SOSNIWorking with the Northern Irish PartiesConclusion9. Journalists, the Northern Ireland 'Troubles' and the Politics of Memoir-WritingIntroductionMy War Gone by, I Miss it so ...'Blow-Ins' and BelfastmenForgive Us Our Press Passes: Political Space and Journalism Confronting the Past: Distance and DenialTelling the Story and Telling one's StoryReflections on Reporting Political ViolenceConclusion10. Victims and Memoir-Writing: Leaving the Troubles Behind?IntroductionInsiders and Outsiders: The 'Different Worlds' of the TroublesMemoir-Writing and the Question of TimingVictims and Perpetrators: Towards Understanding?Conclusion11. Chroniclers of the ConflictNotes and referencesBibliography Index